Reaping and Sowing the News from an Arab Spring: the politicised interaction between traditional and alternative journalistic practitioners

The ‘Arab Spring’ has been discussed in the mainstream media as a ‘social media revolution’; a seismic shift away from the traditional news correspondence towards an era of citizen journalism and social media reporting. This paper reports on a preliminary analysis of the ways in which mainstream and alternative modes of journalistic practice in particular, interacted during the initial months of protest in Egypt and Libya in 2011. Using both quantitative and qualitative forms of analysis of mainstream news reports as well as social media and blogging, the paper compares the ways in which the two modes of journalistic practice collaborated to disseminate news and information about the protests. The preliminary analysis indicates that productive interactions did occur and led to changes in traditional journalistic practice, though true collaboration was hindered by the organisational constraints posed by the reporting practices of each group

Micro- and Nanopatterned Silk Substrates for Antifouling Applications

A major problem of current biomedical implants is the bacterial colonization and subsequent biofilm formation, which seriously affects their functioning and can lead to serious post-surgical complications. Intensive efforts have been directed toward the development of novel technologies that can prevent bacterial colonization while requiring minimal antibiotics doses. To this end, biocompatible materials with intrinsic antifouling capabilities are in high demand. Silk fibroin, widely employed in biotechnology, represents an interesting candidate. Here, we employ a soft-lithography approach to realize micro- and nanostructured silk fibroin substrates, with different geometries. We show that patterned silk film substrates support mammal cells (HEK-293) adhesion and proliferation, and at the same time, they intrinsically display remarkable antifouling properties. We employ Escherichia coli as representative Gram-negative bacteria, and we observe an up to 66% decrease in the number of bacteria that adhere to patterned silk surfaces as compared to control, flat silk samples. The mechanism leading to the inhibition of biofilm formation critically depends on the microstructure geometry, involving both a steric and a hydrophobic effect. We also couple silk fibroin patterned films to a biocompatible, optically responsive organic semiconductor, and we verify that the antifouling properties are very well preserved. The technology described here is of interest for the next generation of biomedical implants, involving the use of materials with enhanced antibacterial capability, easy processability, high biocompatibility, and prompt availability for coupling with photoimaging and photodetection techniques

Propiedades Psicométricas del Inventario Psicológico de Ejecución Deportiva (IPED) en deportistas peruanos de Alto Rendimiento

To measure athlete's success and his sports performance, it is required to quantify the maximum performance developed during seasons of trainings and championships; using a valid, reliable, and adapted to peruvian context instrument. However, caution is urged when considering there is no psychometric evidence to support the use of any scale related to peruvian high performance athletes' sample. The current study was designed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Sports Performance Psychological Inventory (IPED) in the mentioned sample. Method: Participated 255 peruvian athletes with ages between 14 and 38 years (N:23; SD: 4.29); who actively represents the country and in sports modalities affiliated with the Peruvian Sports Institute (IPD). For the collection of information, a sociodemographic record, Sports Performance Psychological Inventory (IPED) and the Mental Toughness Questionnaire (MTQ) were used. Results: IPED model demonstrated, that the seven-dimensional model had an acceptable fit (SBx2 = 2243.096 / df = 798; CFI=. 955; SRMR=. 095; RMSEA=. 084 [IC90%:. 080 -. 069] and reliability analyses revealed high internal consistency (ω =. 841 > ω =. 754). In addition, scores correlated positively between IPP and MTQ dimensions (AC=. 678; CAN=. 557; CAT=. 457; CVI=. 328; NM=. 425; CAP=. 641; CAC=. 662) and Control (AC=. 558; CAN=. 733; CAT=. 682; CVI=. 171; NM=. 272; CAP=. 432; CAC=. 563) Conclusion: The IPED provides adequate evidence of validity and reliability to measure sports performanc

Long-Term Remission Achieved by Ponatinib and Donor Lymphocytes Infusion in a Ph+ Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Patient in Molecular Relapse After Allogenic Stem Cell Transplant and Dasatinib: A Case Report

Currently, the prognosis of Ph+ acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph+ ALL) patients relapsing after an allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT) remains poor, with few therapeutic options available. Here we present the case of a 32 years old patient with dasatinib-resistant post-transplant molecular relapse of ALL, who received, as second-line therapy, the combination of ponatinib and donor lymphocyte infusion (DLI). The therapy was safe and the patient achieved a sustained minimal residual disease negative disease, still ongoing after 22 months, which was accompanied by several changes in the immune populations distribution within the bone marrow (i.e., the increase in the CD8/CD4 lymphocytes ratio). Our report provides evidence of the efficacy of the third generation TKI inhibitor ponatinib in combination with DLI as second line therapy for Ph+ ALL relapsing after an allo-SCT

The role of soil carbon in natural climate solutions

Acknowledgements. This study was made possible by funding from the Craig and Susan McCaw Foundation. Data Deposition A global spatial dataset of reforestation opportunities is available on Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/record/883444). Figures 1 and 2 have associated raw data that can be made available upon request.Peer reviewedPostprin

Body dissatisfaction in university women: new psychometric evidence from the 14-item Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ-14)

In recent years, young university students have experienced a greater concern for the body aspect that is related to having a slim figure. In this sense, it is important to have tools to measure the dissatisfaction they may have with their body appearance. The objective of the study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ-14). Specifically, to evaluate the internal structure of the BSQ-14, the internal consistency of the model, the evidence of discriminant validity based on the correlations of the average score of the BSQ-14 with a measure of mindfulness and the invariance of the BSQ-14 model, considering the variable of performance of physical activities. For hundred two young university students from Metropolitan Lima participated, with an average age of 20.05 years (SD = 18.18). A test battery including the BSQ-14 and Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MASS-5) was administered. The results indicate that the one-dimensional structure of the BSQ-14 presented a good fit (x2 = 571,420; CFI = 0.962; SRMR = 0.051) and adequate reliability by the internal consistency method (ω = 0.962). Likewise, the BSQ-14 showed negative correlations with Mindfulness and body satisfaction. The BSQ-14 was shown to be invariant among university women who do or do not exercise. It is concluded that the study provides results that support the use of the BSQ-14 to measure body dissatisfaction with evidence of validity and reliability in a sample of young university students. of Metropolitan Lima

Exploring the potential for nitrogen fertilizer use mitigation with bundles of management interventions

Mineral nitrogen (N) fertilizer use is essential to maintain high-yielding cropping systems that presently provide food for nearly half of humanity. Simultaneously, it causes a range of detrimental impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions, eutrophication, and contamination of drinking water. There is growing recognition of the need to balance crop production with the impacts of fertilizer use. Here we provide a global assessment of the potential to reduce mineral fertilizer use through four interventions: capping surpluses, enhancing manure cycling to cropland, cultivation of off-season green manures, and cycling of human excreted N to cropland. We find that the combined potential of these interventions is a reduction in global N fertilizer use by 21-52%. The availability of interventions is spatially heterogeneous with most cropland having three to four interventions available with alternative N sources tending to be more abundant on cropland already receiving fertilizer. Our assessment highlights that these locally in part already practiced interventions bear great opportunities to mitigate synthetic N use and dependency globally. Yet, their limited adoption underpins the need for cross-sectoral policies to overcome barriers to their implementation and agronomic research on their robust scaling

Drivers of change in crop–livestock systems and their potential impacts on agro-ecosystems services and human wellbeing to 2030: A study commissioned by the CGIAR Systemwide Livestock Programme

A Study commissioned by the CGIAR Systemwide Livestock Programm

LncRNA profiling in early-stage chronic lymphocytic leukemia identifies transcriptional fingerprints with relevance in clinical outcome

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) represent a novel class of functional RNA molecules with an important emerging role in cancer. To elucidate their potential pathogenetic role in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), a biologically and clinically heterogeneous neoplasia, we investigated lncRNAs expression in a prospective series of 217 early-stage Binet A CLL patients and 26 different subpopulations of normal B-cells, through a custom annotation pipeline of microarray data. Our study identified a 24-lncRNAsignature specifically deregulated in CLL compared with the normal B-cell counterpart. Importantly, this classifier was validated on an independent data set of CLL samples. Belonging to the lncRNA signature characterizing distinct molecular CLL subgroups, we identified lncRNAs recurrently associated with adverse prognostic markers, such as unmutated IGHV status, CD38 expression, 11q and 17p deletions, and NOTCH1 mutations. In addition, correlation analyses predicted a putative lncRNAs interplay with genes and miRNAs expression. Finally, we generated a 2-lncRNA independent risk model, based on lnc-IRF2-3 and lnc-KIAA1755-4 expression, able to distinguish three different prognostic groups in our series of early-stage patients. Overall, our study provides an important resource for future studies on the functions of lncRNAs in CLL, and contributes to the discovery of novel molecular markers with clinical relevance associated with the disease

Impacts of organic and conventional crop management on diversity and activity of free-living nitrogen fixing bacteria and total bacteria are subsidiary to temporal effects

A three year field study (2007-2009) of the diversity and numbers of the total and metabolically active free-living diazotophic bacteria and total bacterial communities in organic and conventionally managed agricultural soil was conducted at the Nafferton Factorial Systems Comparison (NFSC) study, in northeast England. The result demonstrated that there was no consistent effect of either organic or conventional soil management across the three years on the diversity or quantity of either diazotrophic or total bacterial communities. However, ordination analyses carried out on data from each individual year showed that factors associated with the different fertility management measures including availability of nitrogen species, organic carbon and pH, did exert significant effects on the structure of both diazotrophic and total bacterial communities. It appeared that the dominant drivers of qualitative and quantitative changes in both communities were annual and seasonal effects. Moreover, regression analyses showed activity of both communities was significantly affected by soil temperature and climatic conditions. The diazotrophic community showed no significant change in diversity across the three years, however, the total bacterial community significantly increased in diversity year on year. Diversity was always greatest during March for both diazotrophic and total bacterial communities. Quantitative analyses using qPCR of each community indicated that metabolically active diazotrophs were highest in year 1 but the population significantly declined in year 2 before recovering somewhat in the final year. The total bacterial population in contrast increased significantly each year. Seasonal effects were less consistent in this quantitative study